Category Archives: Contemplation

Longer days, warmer weather = happier self

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Ever since I was young, I have always disliked cold weather. The dreary, grey overcast days of the Richmond District of San Francisco always made me feel miserable. Then, when I made the decision to move East for college, snow was fun for about a hot second, and then it settled in to me that this atrocity would last about three months every year. Overall, I’ve really embraced the distinct seasons (especially spring, summer, and autumn), but I always have a general dread for winter because of the shorter, darker days and the extreme cold.

So when it starts warming up in late spring, I always get excited. The days are getting noticeably longer, and I can feel myself just feeling happier in general that I can look forward to lots of sun, natural light through our windows, and not needing to wear layers every day. I am the happiest when I can walk out my front door and not put on any layer on top – no zip-up, no windbreaker, no coat — nothing (other than a hat)! This time of year, I am definitely my happier self.

A day spent exploring the surrounds of San Pedro Sula, Honduras

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If you look at places to see and what to do in San Pedro Sula, you can tell almost right away that it was never a place built with tourism in mind. There’s virtually zero tourism infrastructure. People obviously live there. Many businesses are located and/or headquartered here, so people come for business travel. But when it comes to sightseeing, most of that is found outside of San Pedro Sula, at least an hour outside the city, where you forget “urban” even exists because of how green, jungle-like, and rugged the area outside of it is.

We didn’t want to rent a car or drive in mainland Honduras, so Chris tried for a while to find a driver who could take us on a day trip, but it was challenging. Some of the drivers he found and reached out to didn’t seem legitimate. Others were quoting such astronomically high costs that they would even be absurd if we got quoted those numbers back home in the U.S. Finally, and unexpectedly, we were able to enlist the hotel manager’s help ahead of time in finding us a safe, legitimate driver who charged a reasonable amount to be our driver for the day outside the city. We were warned he didn’t speak any English, but this was fine because we’d give him our desired itinerary ahead of time. And of course, there was always Google Translate (what a savior!).

We visited a number of interesting places today that made us forget about the city completely. Our first stop was at D&D Brewery and Restaurant in the Pena Blanca area. It’s this little brewery/restaurant/inn that you’d totally overlook when driving passed it because it’s so tucked away. It’s physically inside a rainforest close to Lago de Yojoa (Lake Yojoa). Given they are a craft brewery (that uses mountain spring water), we got a pineapple and raspberry beer along with a slice of very light and fluffy chocolate cake to appease Kaia. We also walked around the property, which really did feel like we were right in the center of a jungle. It was a really beautiful spot with friendly service despite the language barrier.

Our next stop was at Los Naranjos Eco-Archaeological Park, which contains pre-Columbian ruins of a major Lenca city dating back to 800 B.C. That is even older than Copan, the famous Maya ruins also in Honduras that is likely better known. Copan dates back to 400 A.D. There, we got to walk along a long wooden boardwalk that curved through these huge wetlands at the edge of Lake Yojoa. I loved all the unique bird songs we got to hear while walking through it — how beautiful it would be to be able to fall asleep to those nature sounds at night! I also appreciated how relatively covered we felt by the endless large trees from the UV rays (I am officially in my forties now, after all…).

Just past midday, we went down to Lake Yojoa and took a calm, relaxing boat tour of the lake and surrounds. This time, our driver Javier came with us, and he occasionally pointed out interesting things to us, like the famous Goblin’s Cave and the turtle shaped island in the middle of the lake. While on the boat, I was reminded of this time last year when we were in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, for a day trip. And the mountains in the distance here and the faint mist over them reminded me of that time. There are so many beautiful bodies of water in the world to see and explore!

We passed so many street side fruit vendors that I had to take advantage of this. So I asked Javier if he could stop by one so I could check out some fruit. I ended up getting a local mango and my very first cacao fruit — all for 70 Lempiras; more on this tomorrow!

A typical lunch by the lake will include fried fish, fried fish, and fried fish, all caught from the lake, with a side of freshly fried plantains in the same oil. Chris managed to find us a teeny tiny little quaint spot overlooking the water called Comedor Mayra, where a very nice lady was able to communicate with us and get our order in. I asked if she had juice, and though she didn’t have any, she was eager to get it from a nearby fresh juice vendor once we told her what we’d be interested in. We ended up having a hibiscus and mango juice. The fish was delicious, as were the tostones and the juices. And I’m still in shock from how cheap the meal was: an entire whole fried fish with tostones with all the cabbage and pickled vegetable fixings, plus two large fresh juices for just 250 Lempiras — that’s not even $10 USD!

Our last stop for the day was at Cataratas Pulhapanzak (Pulhapanzak Falls), meaning “white river overflow in Mayan. “Pulha” as it is known is 43 meters/140-feet tall, located on Rio Lindo about an hour’s drive outside of San Pedro Sula. The area served as a pre-Hispanic center, likely overlapping with the Mayan civilization. Before the Spanish arrived here, the falls were deeply revered as a sacred, mystical site by the indigenous Lenca people. Now, it’s fully set up for tourism, with the option to do cave walks, behind-the-water splash adventures, river tubing, and even multi-course ziplining. There is a big “Pulha” sign for photos with the large waterfall in the background, complete with a large platform to which you can walk up to get the perfect photo opp. It felt like mostly locals and maybe domestic tourists when we went. A lot were getting into the water and swimming in calmer, shallower areas. The whole area felt like a big family-friendly outdoor hangout, and a very natural one at that! I do not recall seeing a single obviously foreign tourist there other than ourselves. The falls were beautiful, and the mist went much farther than it appears it would. We had a feeling that we probably came on a lower flow day because the actual fall itself was relatively small.

We packed a lot into today, with the day planning done by Chris and Claude/Gemini, and some occasional help and friendly pointers from our driver Javier. We ended the day with yesterday’s Power Chicken leftovers (a very popular fast food spot with HUGE portions all over Honduras that should be visited if you ever come!) and a good night’s sleep. And luckily by midday today, my right butt cheek stopped hurting and burning, so I hope I’m on the short road to recovery from these coral reef scrapes.

Honduras bound for an extended Memorial Day weekend

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We’re slowly but surely making our way through Central America. Tomorrow, we leave for Honduras — specifically, about three days in Roatan, the largest of the Bay Islands right in the Caribbean, and then about 1.5 days in the San Pedro Sula area on the mainland. I hadn’t shared with that many people that I was going to Honduras this weekend. But the very few times I did, I was either met with total crickets as though I said nothing, or “I don’t normally say this, and you know me. But… just be careful when you’re there.” I felt excited to be going to a place that not a single person I knew had been before.

Roatan is actually a major stop for massive cruise ships that go through the Caribbean, so for Westerners who like cruises in the Caribbean, it may be a known spot. It’s the largest of the Bay Islands, which were once a former British colony (and before that, inhabited by the local Paya people, and decimated by the Spanish). Though the British colonization was relatively brief, that had a lasting impact on the islands, as English proficiency is extremely high there relative to mainland Honduras. Roatan is also known for having crystal clear waters and having beaches where you don’t have to swim too far out to see parts of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef system in the Western hemisphere.

Honduras is also very famous for its biodiversity, as well as its coffee, which we’ve grown to love and taste more and more since our 2019 Colombia trip. Honduras is the largest coffee producer in all of Central America and the sixth largest coffee producer in the world. Oddly enough, though, we rarely see Honduras on coffee bean bags we’ve seen or bought. From Central America, at least here in the U.S., we’re more likely to see the bean origin being from Guatemala or Costa Rica. I added a bunch of coffee spots to our saved maps list, and I’m eager to see what Honduran coffee is all about.

Baleadas, which are thick tortillas that are cooked on a griddle, usually stuffed with refried beans, mantequilla (their version of sour cream), cheese, and different proteins like fried pork, beef, or eggs, are an unofficial national dish of Honduras that I’m looking forward to trying. I’m waiting for us to have it for the first time and for Chris to predictably remark that it’s like a chapati or paratha… because he likes to think all flat breads cooked on a griddle were stolen from India. And Central American fruit — here we come again!

I have a feeling we will see some American tourists in Roatan, but likely few if any in San Pedro Sula. And that is a real thing to look forward to.

Unexpected finds: deals at Eataly!

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For our extended family gathering on Saturday at Chris’s mom’s cousin’s place, I originally had planned to make a mango tiramisu to bring over. Unfortunately, the two places walking distance from us were no longer selling ladyfingers, so I had to go with a Plan B option pretty quickly based on my pantry. And because my pantry is pretty well stocked, I had a lot of potential options. But I stuck with my mango theme and ended up making mango lassi butter mochi cake from one of my favorite food bloggers Milk and Cardamom, and it was a huge hit. Since I had to open a large can of kesar mango pulp, I had a lot of pulp leftover. I had already purchased the heavy whipping cream and mascarpone to make the tiramisu, and I didn’t really have the headspace to figure out how to repurpose them. So I decided that for Chris’s dad’s birthday coming up this Thursday that I would make my original dessert of mango tiramisu repurposed as his birthday cake. But that meant I had to find those damn ladyfingers.

Chris insisted I was overthinking it and told me just to buy them on Amazon. So I went on Amazon, found a decent brand from Italy, and purchased two 7 oz. packs of imported ladyfingers for… almost $20. Yes, I thought it was expensive, but I chocked it up to inflation. Chris saw the email receipt from Amazon and balked at the price, asking me why they were so expensive. I told him my rationale, and of course, he didn’t think it was enough. So he started doing searches on ladyfingers and somehow found out that Eataly right here in New York sold a 14 oz. pack of Italian ladyfingers for $7.99, so less than half of what I would have paid on Amazon. He cancelled my Amazon order, and yesterday, I went to Eataly Flatiron to check out the ladyfinger stocks.

I think the last time I stepped foot into an Eataly was pre-pandemic, so over six years ago. I have zero reason to go to Eataly because I usually get my Italian groceries from Little Italy in the Bronx, or at other Italian grocery/specialty stores. Eataly has always just been too packed and touristy for me to enjoy. I always hated going in there and feeling like a sardine; walking in there was never a comfortable experience. But walking in there today (at an off hour, obviously), I was pleasantly surprised. There were a few interesting sample stations set up to entice visitors to either order interesting new drinks or treats. There were also a good number of sales when it came to grocery items, whether it was cocoa-hazelnut spreads, Italian olive oils, pistachio cream spreads, and multiple types of Italian cookies. Then, I found the Eataly brand of ladyfingers, a 14-oz. bag, for even less than what Chris saw online — it was $6.49! So I ended up spending less than a third of what I would have spent if I had bought a similar product on Amazon. Who would have guessed that the cheapest ladyfingers I could find would be at Eataly of all places! I just assumed they would be more expensive there, but I was obviously very wrong. In addition, I picked up a jar of wild strawberry jam from an Italian brand that I hadn’t seen in years — also on sale!

Now that I had this positive experience at Eataly and saw so many interesting items on sale at pretty reasonable prices, I realize that I have more of a reason to occasionally pop in there to browse, especially since there is an Eataly in SoHo, not too far away from Kaia’s current school. So, maybe I will be more intentional about stopping in there when I am in the mood to browse Italian groceries. It’s always fun to find good deals on tasty things!

One seemingly little decision that paves a very different future — forever

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Today, I met up with a friend’s friend I met for the first time at a kid’s birthday party several weeks ago. We met at a coffee shop on the Upper West Side and talked about our backgrounds, work, kids, and families. This friend grew up in the Dominican Republic, but she is fluent not just in Spanish, but also in French (and English). Her two young daughters are at a French daycare and school. So I was curious to understand how she learned French, and then how she decided to have her daughters immersed in French language.

She said that her mom wanted her and her two younger siblings to learn English. But when her mom started looking into the schools, she found out that while the private American international school’s fees were extremely high, the private French international school was just a fraction of the cost. With this school, her children would learn not just English, but also French — at a massive discount! So it was a no brainer for her to send all three kids to the French school. That French K-12 led to all three kids moving to France to study and eventually work. This friend lives in New York now with her husband and two daughters, while her two siblings are still living and working in Paris and the south of France.

I wonder if her mom ever envisioned the future of her three kids not just being tri-lingual, but also moving quite far away from home and in their daily lives, speaking a different language than their native tongue. That one seemingly little decision changed her kids’ paths in life forever. It makes me wonder what Kaia’s young adulthood and adulthood will look like — merely because of seemingly small choices that Chris and I are making now.

Pre-recorded video interviews as the norm in today’s interview process

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For the last 22 years (including interviews during college), I have been used to having interviews conducted over the phone, video conferencing, and of course, in person. Back in 2020 when I was looking for jobs, presentations of various sorts were a given with the types of roles I considered. But alas, a lot has changed since 2020. Artificial Intelligence has taken over. Pretty much every tech company out there is either pushing an AI product, or at minimum, claims to have some product, which is then “powered by AI.”

So it shouldn’t have come as a shock when I was invited to interview with a company in the last week, and instead of being asked to have a recruiter phone/video screen, I was asked to do a pre-recorded video interview as the first step of the process. This is meant to streamline the screening process and to get a sense of how well I speak and present myself (especially given I am being considered for a customer-facing role, which would require these skills). In the brief email, they shared that I would be given three questions, with about one to two minutes to answer each question. If needed, I also had the option to re-take each answer once. Before I would start, I would be given the opportunity to test my microphone and video to ensure the audio/visual was working properly. In total, they said this should take me no more than five minutes of time to complete.

I did some research on the tool I’d be using. It seems like this is more “normal” now than it is not. Every organization on the face of the planet is looking to streamline their processes and become more efficient, and if a recruiter can review hundreds of candidates in five minute videos of each speaking versus thirty minutes, that’s cutting the time needed to interview by over 80 percent. Why would they not do this if they could and then focus on tasks that actually require direct human-to-human interaction? I guess these are the things I am learning now since I’ve been out of the habit of interviewing for almost six years now.

TIL that Cornell was built between two gorges

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When I was in high school listening to peers around me talking about how they would choose the colleges they’d apply to, one criteria inevitably always came up when it came to private schools out of state (of California): the beauty of the campus. This seems a little ridiculous when you think about it: when you are enrolled and going through the hell of midterms or final papers and exams, do you really think you will be meditating on how beautiful your chosen college campus is?! My college had a beautiful campus, and while I did appreciate the architectural details, the large green lawns, and the lake, these details were always lost when I was stressing about my studies.

However, for those I knew who applied to and went to Cornell, whether that was for undergrad or grad work, not a single person ever, ever told me that the campus was intentionally built between two gorges: the Fall Creek Gorge and the Cascadilla Gorge. There’s a huge waterfall and dam that runs through the middle of the campus. From certain hills on the campus, you can see sweeping views of Cayuga Lake, which is one of the eleven Finger Lakes (and one of the most well known, next to Seneca Lake). And the university actually utilizes the natural water flow through Fall Creek Gorge to power a hydroelectric plant, which generates a portion of the campus’s electricity. That’s quite impressive. Ezra Cornell, who designed the university, intentionally built it around the two gorges. I just found this to be such a unique and impressive story, one I had zero idea about before visiting the campus today. And it would be very good future trivia on American colleges and universities — and a point in favor of Cornell being on the top lists for “most beautiful college campuses.”

Although I will say that as soon as I knew there were gorges around the campus, plus the huge dam, my mind (and eyes) immediately started looking for suicide netting… which I quickly noticed. The nets are like the suicide net around the Golden Gate Bridge — meant to feel like slicing yourself through a cheese grater if you chose to jump into it. Where there is beauty, there can also be pain.

How long are we allowed to be kids?

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When we were getting ready to go to Kaia’s friend’s 4th birthday party in our building yesterday, out of nowhere, Kaia decided that she wanted to wear her cow costume (from Halloween two years ago, as it was oversized!) to the party. Originally, Chris was not a fan of this and insisted that she just wear regular clothes. But Kaia is stubborn (just like both of her parents), and she continued persisting that she really wanted to wear it. I thought about it for a minute and just told Chris that we should relent.

“We should just let her wear it,” I said to him. “She only has so much time when she can wear a costume like this when it will be considered ‘acceptable.'” Plus, she’s already slowly getting too long for this oversized costume, and she won’t be able to wear it soon anymore. So we should just let her get more wears and fun out of it as long as we can.

Of course, Kaia was thrilled. She insisted that the cow be fully zipped up, and that she even wear the cow “head” (the hood part). Knowing her, I had a feeling she’d last only a short time at the party with the outfit since it would get quite hot and stuffy, especially with so many people in the apartment. So predictably, the cow costume eventually came off. But of course, all the adults marveled at her cow costume initially. One of them even asked me, “So, is this her weekend outfit of choice?”

Kids can get away with so many things that adults could never get away with: making beelines and cutting people off for seats on public transportation; constantly angling for freebies at stories and restaurants; simply smiling and getting free candy from doormen in buildings; wearing single-piece full length costumes on just any average day. I love that about childhood, and I wish we could all learn to embrace it more. Childhood is finite — it will all come to an end, and then we will no longer be given grace on so many things. Well, I can’t really personally embrace it since I’m quite far from my childhood years, but I want to let Kaia embrace it for as long as possible. I want her to enjoy her childhood and not have her rush to become an adult. There’s so much fun and magic in childhood that gets lost when we focus too much on the future and “getting big.”

A sore left hip flexor, and when cortisol spikes in middle age due to slowing metabolism

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I only did one run this week on Wednesday, which isn’t normal for my weekly workout routine. I did my usual warm up, then as soon as the run was done, I could tell my left hip flexor was tight. Then annoyingly, it remained tight all day… through today. I’ve never had a tightness in my left hip flexor before. After weaning from breastfeeding and doing more high intensity runs back in 2023, I discovered tightness on the right side for the first time in my life. The amazing trainer at my gym gave me suggestions for strengthening exercises for my glutes, hamstrings, and hip flexor to prevent the tightness. In addition, I did more hip flexor stretches and incorporated a yoga session per week to increase mobility. That seemed to do the trick: I cannot remember the last time my right hip flexor was sore. But now, it seems my left hip flexor is crying out for help, asking, “Hey! Remember me! You need to help me, too!” Those exercises I did for my right side were also done on my left side, too. So this may just be a new weakness I’ve identified that may need to be addressed in a slightly different way.

Aging is a gift. Not everyone is lucky enough to see their next birthday, to live up to the age you or I am at. And I’ve embraced it with more confidence every year. But I will be honest: identifying these new changes in my body and trying to figure out how to troubleshoot them have not been very fun. I am extremely active, exercise far more than the average person does, and try to take care of myself the best I can to ensure optimal health and fitness. But finding out about all these new physiological shifts of midlife, such as declining estrogen that slow metabolism, is challenging. Just a few years ago, if I knew I needed to burn some extra fat, I would just do a harder, more intense run and for longer. I’d do barre or pilates fusion until it burned. And it always worked then. This isn’t the case anymore, and it isn’t that simple where I am now. I’ve already been going hard for the last few months since coming back from Australia and the Philippines, and I’ve only lost about 3-4 pounds out of the eight I wanted to lose. The extra belly fat is just stuck there and doesn’t want to leave. No one else would notice it other than me, though. Running more intensely is NOT producing fat loss because it doesn’t address this age-related shifts that slow metabolism. Plus at this age, steady-state running can even spike cortisol levels, signaling that the body needs to protect itself and guard the fat more, especially in the abdominal area. I guess that’s why I have a little more pudge around my lower waist than I did pre-weaning.

I guess I will need to embrace brisk incline walks a couple times a week now, in place of 2-3x week runs. I will see if it results in any change because I have a feeling my cortisol must be spiking. I suppose this is the right attitude: test and learn, test and shift when things don’t work! These are the new things I am learning to live with — the fact that I cannot control all the changes happening to my body as easily as I did before.

Transitional weather conundrum: what am I supposed to wear?

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The weather has been pretty wonky here in New York the last couple weeks. This last week, it’s been so cold that even after doing a thorough wash of our down-like winter coats to (originally) put away until next winter, I actually had to take them out again for Kaia and me. Kaia wore hers twice this week, and I wore mine once! It’s April, and we still need to turn the heat on at home…

So today, it was actually supposed to hit low 60s F in the city. Kaia wore a light jacket to school. I wouldn’t leave the house until the afternoon to meet my friend, and I had no idea what I wanted to wear. Because I tend to run cold, I put on a sweater, plus a medium-weight coat on top of it. I walked outside for two blocks and already felt too hot, so I took off my scarf.

Everyone who is into fashion always goes gaga for “transitional” seasons like spring and autumn. These people love their autumn or spring jackets, their cute tops and skirts, and count down the days when they can put together these nice outfits. I, on the other hand, am not at all a fashionista, truly dislike both of those seasons for dressing myself. I never have any idea what to wear, how to layer things. And since I run cold, I tend to overdress, which then means I will need to shed layers, which then means I will need to either carry said layers or stuff them in a bag. And that is so annoying to me. It’s even more annoying now that I have a preschooler, who always insists I carry her crap, as well!

I met my friend for tea today. After she hugged me, she looked me up and down, then back down and up. Then she said, “Are you a bit warm in this?”

Sometimes, I wish I could just go outside wearing a big warm brown paper bag and call it a day. That would be so much simpler.